I'm a nineteen year old university student on the Canadian Prairies studying human development and kinesiology and applied health. I plan to enter the fields of occupational therapy and asthma education in the future.
I was diagnosed with asthma when I was seventeen, and have had my share of ups and downs living with crazy lungs.
KerriOnThePrairies submitted a way to: Live with asthma
way to be well created 11.18.10
get started with exercise and asthma!
Before I was diagnosed with asthma two and a half years ago, I was pretty much one of the laziest people alive. Well, maybe not quite, but I think I probably counted walking home from the bus stop [a distance of 0.7 whopping kilometers] as exercise. It probably didn’t help that that year, grade eleven, was the only year we did not have mandatory physical education in school, although I think my grade eleven biology teacher’s wellness unit got to me, and a couple friends and I took a yoga class once a week, which was much too slow and boring for this slightly hyper girl. Yogalates maybe would have worked for me, yoga just made me bored and fall over, even though it is really good for people with asthma!
Oh yeah, asthma, I guess I need to mention that! Grade eleven was also the year I was diagnosed with asthma, which of course, made all of the getting-active more of a challenge—but, it got done!
So when grade twelve came around and I had to go back to gym, it really, really sucked. My asthma was out of control because I wasn’t on the right medications, and I remember walking the first ten minutes of the twelve-minute-run, running for the last two, and promptly crashing on the bleachers, gasping with my hands on my knees. Oh yeah, that’s fun. Not.
Except, soon enough, I discovered Breathinstephen, an awesome man who would soon become not only an amazing source of help and information in living with my asthma, but a really great friend as well. Stephen has really bad asthma, and has done not one, but six marathons and seven half marathons . . . and often tells people if he can do it, they can do it too. Darn your awesome, Steve—I decided to try taking things to the next level and started doing a bit of working out on my own time that didn’t count for my 55 out-of-class gym hours.
The key is finding fun things that you like to do. Stuff like my mom’s exercise bike and line dance videos [okay, fine, I think that is from some fitness kick she must have had in the 80s, but still] were not a hit with me, I had to try some new things. The mini-trampoline was a hit. While unfortunately I cannot do backflips on it without killing myself [no, I haven’t tried], jumping around coupled with a good playlist on the iPod is way fun. I can’t exercise unless I have a good playlist on the iPod going!
The next term, I dropped my first period law class and due to lack of anything else being decent and took dance with some of my friends. I am probably one of the least coordinated people ever, so this was a pretty drastic measure just to not have a first-period spare. And while it was a pain in the butt because I had to sit out whenever I got sick or my asthma was flaring too much, I participated as much as I could, learned a ton of new stuff. . oh, and got a 90 in the course! My teacher was amazing, and we had a lot of fun. From time to time, I still crank the music in my room and dance!
When school ended, I started walking more—I’ve tried running, but it just doesn’t work for me. I built up from like, ten minutes or something and in September completed my first 10K race in under two hours. I just, you know, walk as fast as I can. I after graduating my distance to 5, 6 and 7 kilometers, I then was able to explore different parts of my neighbourhood, see weird things like socks in the middle of the sidewalk, and ramp up my distance [and hopefully to come, my speed!].
Trampoline, dancing, and walking are my ways to be physically well. You’ve just gotta find yours and stick with it! What are your favourite ways to stay active?
Oh yeah, asthma, I guess I need to mention that! Grade eleven was also the year I was diagnosed with asthma, which of course, made all of the getting-active more of a challenge—but, it got done!
So when grade twelve came around and I had to go back to gym, it really, really sucked. My asthma was out of control because I wasn’t on the right medications, and I remember walking the first ten minutes of the twelve-minute-run, running for the last two, and promptly crashing on the bleachers, gasping with my hands on my knees. Oh yeah, that’s fun. Not.
Except, soon enough, I discovered Breathinstephen, an awesome man who would soon become not only an amazing source of help and information in living with my asthma, but a really great friend as well. Stephen has really bad asthma, and has done not one, but six marathons and seven half marathons . . . and often tells people if he can do it, they can do it too. Darn your awesome, Steve—I decided to try taking things to the next level and started doing a bit of working out on my own time that didn’t count for my 55 out-of-class gym hours.
The key is finding fun things that you like to do. Stuff like my mom’s exercise bike and line dance videos [okay, fine, I think that is from some fitness kick she must have had in the 80s, but still] were not a hit with me, I had to try some new things. The mini-trampoline was a hit. While unfortunately I cannot do backflips on it without killing myself [no, I haven’t tried], jumping around coupled with a good playlist on the iPod is way fun. I can’t exercise unless I have a good playlist on the iPod going!
The next term, I dropped my first period law class and due to lack of anything else being decent and took dance with some of my friends. I am probably one of the least coordinated people ever, so this was a pretty drastic measure just to not have a first-period spare. And while it was a pain in the butt because I had to sit out whenever I got sick or my asthma was flaring too much, I participated as much as I could, learned a ton of new stuff. . oh, and got a 90 in the course! My teacher was amazing, and we had a lot of fun. From time to time, I still crank the music in my room and dance!
When school ended, I started walking more—I’ve tried running, but it just doesn’t work for me. I built up from like, ten minutes or something and in September completed my first 10K race in under two hours. I just, you know, walk as fast as I can. I after graduating my distance to 5, 6 and 7 kilometers, I then was able to explore different parts of my neighbourhood, see weird things like socks in the middle of the sidewalk, and ramp up my distance [and hopefully to come, my speed!].
Trampoline, dancing, and walking are my ways to be physically well. You’ve just gotta find yours and stick with it! What are your favourite ways to stay active?
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